The Free

Portrait of George William Russell
George William Russell 1867–1935
62Collected Poems by A.E.

THEY bathed in the fire-flooded fountains: Life girdled them round and about: They slept in the clefts of the mountains: The stars called them forth with a shout.

They prayed, but their worship was only The wonder at nights and at days, As still as the lips of the lonely Though burning with dumbness of praise.

No sadness of earth ever captured Their spirits who bowed at the shrine: They fled to the Lonely enraptured And hid in the darkness divine.

As children at twilight may gather, They met at the doorway of death The smile of the dark hidden Father, The Mother with magical breath.

Untold of in song or in story, In days long forgotten of men, Their eyes were yet blind with a glory Time will not remember again.

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